Abstract
The present study compares the proventricular morphology, analyzed under optic microscope and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), among ten Grylloidea species. The result showed that the size of proventriculus was of critical value. Internally, the main differences were the number of sclerotized appendix (sa), middle denticles (md) and lateral denticles (ld), and the structure of lateral teeth (lt). In addition, we analyzed the crickets' feeding habits and note that the the proventriculus possesses highly sclerotized projections which act in the selection of victuals. The morphology of proventriculus is closely related to feeding habits. A clustering analysis of seven features of the proventriculus was constructed. It revealed that the proventriculus had significance for taxonomy and species relationships. Observations on morphological characterization of proventricular morphology will be useful in future studies of the feeding habits and phylogeny of crickets.
NSTL